Vehicle manufacturers often perform an assortment of outflow tests to ensure the quality of a vehicle following its assembly. For instance, one or more tests may be performed in order to determine the drift characteristics of a vehicle. In general, these tests are used to determine the vehicle's tendency, in the absence of a manual steering input, to deviate from a straight line while traveling on a canted track at a predetermined speed.
In a typical test, under the operation of a trained driver, the vehicle is driven along a canted track in alignment with a predetermined centerline. Subsequently, the driver discontinues steering input, after which time the drift characteristics of the vehicle are determined. The drift characteristics may be determined, for example, based on an observation by the driver of the deviation of the vehicle from the predetermined centerline at some specified portion of the vehicle's travel. The drift characteristics are then judged with reference to acceptable levels of drift in consideration of the cant of the track and other driving variables. Although such testing has proven to be satisfactory in determining the drift characteristics of the vehicle, vehicle manufactures may desire improvements upon these tests.